


Wild Youth

by alwaysupatnight



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Drunk Sex, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, One Night Stand, Smut, Unsafe Sex, mexican honeymoon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-05 11:24:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11012454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwaysupatnight/pseuds/alwaysupatnight
Summary: He’dpromisedher. No bumps or scrapes.That promise? As good as broken.





	1. Common Thief

Seth’s woken up in a number of unusual and humiliating ways over the years after nights of drinking, usually without his pants, so the feel of a bare breast cupped in the palm of his hand is hardly anything to be worried about.

Seth moves closer to the warm body beside him, hugging the smaller form of his bedmate close despite the uncomfortable heat and the trickle of sweat down the side of his face. He could see himself going for Round Two if she’s cute, and if it weren’t for the jack-hammering in his skull making him regret whatever the hell he’d gotten into last night. He can be a flirt after a couple of rounds, and he half wonders where he picked up this broad, and whether he’s going to have to pay for her cab home, ‘cause he’s not about to bring her hotcakes and hash browns in bed. He’s tempted to lie there forever, but he’s got one slight problem: last night’s hookup is still in his bed, and he needs to get rid of her before Kate finds out.

Shit. _Kate_.

She’s gonna be pissed that he brought a _guest_ back to their motel room. But this being his first infraction and all in the three months since they’ve been keeping each other’s company, he dares to hope she won’t mind so much.

Oh, who the hell does he think he’s kidding? Kate’s a good girl, and she might not say it in words, but the stink eye she’ll be casting in his direction will be more than enough of a reminder of all the ways he’s screwed up. Flashing her some teeth normally does the trick, although he’s not so sure that good little Christian heart of hers will forgive him this in the same instant it usually takes.

She can forgive _murder_ , but Seth’s doubtful Kate will be all that forgiving when it comes to his hookups sharing her private space.

_Personal boundaries_ and all that.

Seth blinks hard and rolls away from the girl, digging the butt of his palms into bleary eyes to wake himself up. Head throbbing with the consequences of last night, Seth glances at the nightstand where Kate sometimes leaves a bottle of water and some painkillers for him after he’s spent the night drinking himself into tomorrow’s regret.

Kate’s good to him like that. Making sure he’s breathing after he takes a hit. Helping bandage him up when he bleeds. She’s good with blood, he’s found. Not squeamish. When he’s feeling generous, he lets her mommy him because she seems to prefer that to doping him up. She’s ruthless when she wields his needle, stabbing into him and drawing blood back into the syringe before releasing the amber contents into his bloodstream. Yet she apologizes profusely, winces as if she shares his pain each time her needle enters his skin to stitch closed his wounds.

“You’re already in enough pain,” she’d said when he asked why _she_ kept making faces when _she_ wasn’t the one being stabbed full of holes.

Today it seems Kate has rescinded her empathy, as the nightstand is devoid of water or painkillers.

There’s no Kate to be found either. Seth looks to the other full-sized bed in the room, not really expecting to find her, but still feeling disappointment all the same when he finds that the bed sheets are as pristine as she’d left them the night before.

Logic follows that no way in hell Kate would stick around with him occupying the room with his _companion_. It wouldn’t surprise him if she’d come home last night, found him with his guest, wised up and ditched his ass in their stolen piece of shit Chevy. But he’ll hand it to her that Kate’s resourcefulness surprises him sometimes. She blinks those big innocent eyes at people and they fall all over themselves to help her. Like that creepy as fuck night manager. He’d rather she stay about three thousand feet away from that skeevy bastard, because as far as Seth is concerned, nobody’s interest in the girl should be that apparent with him hanging around. And he ain’t planning on going anywhere for the foreseeable future.

If Seth’s taught her anything in the last three months, the only person Kate should trust – besides him – is herself. Maybe not even him.

Seth notices Kate’s boots by the door and is only mildly comforted by the fact that she can’t be too far away, unless she’s wandering around Mexico barefoot. Point is, she’s close and – he hopes – safe.

Seth turns to his companion and shakes her shoulder. “Hey,” he says. “C’mon. Wakey, wakey.”

The girl groans and slaps his hand away. Well, movement is a good sign. It’s a miracle she hadn’t suffered from alcohol poisoning if she’d had half as much to drink as him last night. A curtain of dark hair tinged with the slightest auburn obscures her face.

Now that he’s looking, there’s a familiarity about it that stops him short and opens up a pit in his chest, and it’s not just the hangover throbbing in his head, but his heartbeat hammering in his ears. Dread overwhelms him, and with a shaking hand, Seth sweeps the hair away from the girl’s face.

Face shaped like a heart, with a dusting of freckles across her nose from too much sun after an afternoon at the pool. She’d be the picture of innocence if it weren’t for the sheets tangled up in her legs and the miles of bare skin before his eyes.

The preacher’s daughter. The teenage dream he’d warned his brother to stay the hell away from.

_Kate_.

Passed out.

In his bed.

_Naked_.

The gold cross at her neck catches the light and winks up at him like the punch line to a joke he doesn’t find at all funny.

And it’s not as if he hasn’t seen his fair share of her over the months. There’d been no escaping it with them living out of shitty motel rooms and their shared backpack. It was bound to happen sooner or later. He’d always tried to be a gentleman about it, but this isn’t accidentally busting in on her in the bathroom as she’s stepping into her jeans, or catching a glimpse of her bare back as she removes her bra and changes into her pajamas.

No.

This is a whole new level of _what the fuck have you done now, Gecko?_

Seth slaps a hand over his face to shield his eyes, because no way in hell is he meant to be seeing... _all of her_. But like a traffic accident, he can’t seem to look away, and so Seth surveys the damage. Half of him wants to believe he’s gotta be dreaming because this is a complete _nightmare_. No one’s ever accused him of being _good_. Seth knows how much of a bastard he is. His dad sure as shit never let him forget it. But he hadn’t anticipated Kate Fuller when his father pegged him with that attribute.

The absolute worst part about it all is the stirring in his groin at all that soft, smooth skin –

Jesus, he’s gonna be sick.

Her dark hair is a knotted mess, and he has the distinct feeling it’s because he’d tangled his fingers in it last night. Her skin glistens with a sheen of sweat, her face flushed with heat because the AC is broken and this is fucking _Mexico_ and it’s gotta be about a thousand degrees in here. Or maybe he’s finally being drawn into the pits of Hell because bedding a goddamn _preacher’s daughter_ was just taking things one step too far.

Bright red patches tattoo her skin where he’s bruised her with his lips, some purpled in spots where he’d used his teeth, and Christ, he’d pound the shit out of the animal who did this to her. Unfortunately, it’s rather difficult to punch _yourself_ in the fucking nuts, and he’s never been one to engage in self-flagellation, but he’s seriously considering taking up the practice.

His eyes are drawn to a smear of blood just on her inner thigh that stands out on her pale skin like a warning sign – a big, red flashing fucking skull and crossbones that sets a siren screaming in his mind.

That line he’d been determined not to cross? The one he’d drawn the moment he’d seen the _interest_ in Richard’s eyes and vowed he wouldn’t let one bad thing touch her? He’s more than crossed it. The line’s been fucking _obliterated_.

He’d _promised_ her. No bumps or scrapes.

That promise? As good as broken.

Seth’s ears buzz as the alarms continue to scream in his head, but it’s too late to evacuate from this disaster. Guilt constricts his throat, and he bows his head in shame.

At least he’d had the presence in his intoxicated state to finish on her thighs.

He really is a _fucking_ bastard.

“Son of a bitch,” Seth groans.

Kate stirs then, rolls over and snuggles against him with her head on his chest. He tenses, holding his breath, and Seth has never been a praying man, but he hopes to God that she’ll sleep just a bit longer. Just long enough to drag his hungover ass out of this bed and find a nice cliff to drive himself over –

It’s too late. She’s awake.

Kate’s doe eyes blink open, still pretty even with smeared mascara giving her eyes like a raccoon. He freezes as the fog of her brain lifts and the expression on her face transforms. First confusion at finding him there in bed with her, then shock as realization sets in that he’s not her pillow, and she snaps her head up at him with wide green eyes.

“Seth?” she says, her voice confused and rough with sleep.

“Sorry, Princess,” he rasps.

Her arms slide away from his middle as Seth rises and stumbles to the bathroom naked. He can’t find his motherfucking shorts anyway.

He slams himself down at the little sink and turns on the faucet. Lukewarm water fills his cupped hands, and Seth brings it to his lips and gulps it down. Last night flashes in his mind, and he remembers. Not everything, but _enough_. With shaking hands, Seth splashes his whole face with no luck of it scrubbing away the assault of memories of Kate pinned beneath him, all soft, wanting flesh. Kate scratching at his back with her blunt nails. Kate’s lips at his neck, panting her breath across his heated skin. Kate moaning his name as he moved inside of her –

Dizzy with guilt, Seth closes his eyes and bows his head, fingers curling into the laminate edge of the counter.

When he opens his eyes, he chokes at the sight of his limp cock stained cherry red with her virtue.

He _robbed_ her. And it started with a little trip to Mexico, but it’s only his fault that it ended with him in bed with her, taking the only thing he had zero right to, and _goddammit_ , he’s stolen a lot of shit in his life and never had a problem with remorse. But _Kate_?

He just keeps finding new ways to screw her.

Literally.

God, he’s never hated himself so much.

Vanessa had once accused him of not wanting a real relationship, and only needing her to fill his bed at night so he wouldn’t feel alone. It’d been during one of their _off-again_ phases, before they’d run off to Vegas and made the mistake of getting married, but it’d stuck with him all these years. She said he’d end up a sad, pathetic old man with only his brother for company because he wouldn’t let her in. Funny that the memory picks this precise moment to rattle out of his brain.

But maybe Vanessa had had him pegged from the start.

There’s only one thing Seth knows with certainty, and he’s pretty sure if he allows himself to get any closer to this girl, he’ll only leave her broken and empty. He’s already succeeded at wrecking her life. He’s not sure he can add ruining _her_ to his list of unimaginable fuck-ups and not end up finding a nice big bullet for himself to take a bite out of.

After all, he never has been good at building things.

Only breaking them.


	2. Saint Kate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate knew last night meant something to him, but _mistake_ wouldn’t have been the first word she’d have used to define it.

_My girl_.

That’s what he’d called her last night, sometime between sliding another shot to her across the bar and helping her out of her blouse, between sloppy kisses and dizzy giggles and touches that’d made her breathless. And for a few hours, she’d reveled in being his. _Finally_.

But it’s hard to feel like hot shit when your head has grown its own heartbeat and the guy you shouldn’t be in love with becomes a brooding mess the morning after having sex with you. Watching Seth stumble to the bathroom and shut the door behind him had been a major blow to the ego.

The worst part of it all was the horrified look on Seth’s face and the apology that’d torn from his lips.

_“Sorry, Princess.”_

Kate knew last night meant something to him, but _mistake_ wouldn’t have been the first word she’d have used to define it.

Sitting up, Kate has to fight the urge to puke – from the overabundance of alcohol in her blood or the utter humiliation of being abandoned naked in Seth’s bed, she’s not sure. Between her nausea and the ruthless pounding in her head, she can _almost_ forget about the telling throb between her legs.

She’d followed him to the bar last night, spotted him immediately among the crowd of mostly college students. He’d admonished her for coming alone, for coming after him when he’d told her to stay put and not to wait up for him. He’d ordered her a drink not a moment later, something that burned all the way to her toes until she was warm from the inside out. He’d scooted his chair closer to hers and slung his arm around her shoulders. _To keep all the crazies away_ , he’d said.

After that, things got fuzzy, but there are some things she’ll never forget:

The feel of his lips all over, in places she’d never imagined would be so sensitive to his anything-but-innocent touch.

The weight of him pressing her into the mattress, his whole body surrounding her but knowing she was safe.

The hitch in his voice when he said her name, muffled against her neck, as he came across her thighs.

There’s no way, no _freaking_ way he could have faked it all last night. He likes to play at being an actor, but after three months on the run she _knows_ him, knows the difference between the performer and the man.

So she _knows_ there has to be an explanation for the _one-eighty_ Seth pulled this morning. Because the Seth from last night whose smile ignited something inside her that she didn’t think she could feel anymore, who’d claimed her with bruising kisses she should be angry about and left his name burning on her heart? That’s not who she woke up next to. That man looked at her as if he should’ve been hauled away in handcuffs, his face warped into a look of devastation that now has Kate fighting back tears and wishing she hadn’t been _stupid_ enough to fall in love.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

A few months ago, Kate snuck into the back of her daddy’s church to fall into the arms of a boy who texted Bible passages like love notes, and who dreamed of someday becoming a pastor like her father. A boy, she thought, possibly more innocent than she was, who’d never said a bad word about anyone in his life. She’d kissed him and thought it a sin, because a kiss with tongue had been the most daring she’d ever thought to be at the time.

Kyle Winthrop, her first love.

Kate wonders how she ever could’ve believed the absolute _lie_ of him.

Yet, despite the _handle with care_ sticker already plastered to her heart, she’d gone and given Seth all that she had left, gone and let herself be stupid once again, and hoped his hands wouldn’t be as reckless as Kyle’s.

What would Jessica have to say about this? Kate considers whether her best friend would have any words of comfort to offer, or if it’d be a string of _I-told-you-so’s_ , because a man like Seth Gecko was never meant to be the fairytale Kate had always expected to have. She and Seth are the very definition of _it’s complicated_ so of course. _Of-freaking-course_ Seth has hang-ups about this.

Well, he isn’t Prince Charming, and her first time definitely doesn’t add up to _happily ever after_. She and Seth aren’t married, and this isn’t some luxurious honeymoon suite. The teal paint barely makes an effort to stay on the walls in this dump of a motel.

And she never got to wear a pretty white dress. She can’t afford to wear white anymore.

It all just gets bloodstained anyway.

Kate releases a bitter laugh that turns into a sob. She takes a deep breath, squeezing her eyes shut to block the wave of tears that threaten to fall.

Of all the things she’s lost – her home, her family, her _identity_ – somehow what she lost last night in Seth’s bed is the only thing that seems to matter to him. If Seth was the praying type, she imagines he’d be on his knees and begging forgiveness, even though he’d been just as excited and happy as she was last night when he’d kissed her and she’d called it love.

Of all the things she’s endured at his hands, changing his mind after everything he said last night has to be the most unforgiveable of them all.

That and she never imagined she’d have to declare _no take backs_ on her own virginity.

He likes to think her life hadn’t yet started until he came into it, but the cracks in her perfect world were visible long before that bungled trip to Mexico. Like fractured ice, the cracks spread, originating at the point of her mother’s illness and splintering outward until her whole world came down in glassy shards when she held that stake in her hands and forced it into her daddy’s heart.

That girl from before? The one who sang in her church choir and believed in fairytales?

_That girl is long gone._

When did she become this person, who fixes needles for a drug addict and administers poison like life support, who plays the getaway driver and shares a bed with a criminal? But it’s not like being a chaste preacher’s daughter had ever kept her _safe_. All it has ever done is cause her trouble, because coming face to face with reality is such a harsh wake-up call when you never knew the kind of ugliness that exists out there. Never believed that it could touch you.

Safety, Kate thinks, is a mental construct. It doesn’t exist in the Real World. You could do everything right and still end up dead. Or deader than dead. Dead with slit pupils like a snake’s and a taste for blood...

Kate shudders, hating the way the oil-slick memories of the labyrinth creep up her spine and leave a slimy trail in their wake, and no amount of scrubbing could ever make her clean when death and pain and misery have already touched her in places no young girl should have to bear and left her hands bloody.

It’s only the remembered warmth she’d felt last night, whether from the booze or Seth’s body heat or a mixture of both, that brings her racing heart back to a steady pulse.

_Seth_.

Last night when he’d slurred words that made her feel something other than tragedy at her utter failure to keep the promise she’d made to her dad, she’d allowed the line Seth had drawn between them to blur. And for a moment she was a girl who believed in fairytales once again.

Kate hasn’t been _innocent_ in a long time, and having Seth Gecko between her legs wouldn’t change that. And if loving him is the worst thing she could possibly do... she’d gladly face the consequences.

Kate wonders if this is how Bonnie felt when she fell for Clyde.

Wincing at the ache between her legs, Kate rises from the bed. She hears the pipes rattle as the shower turns on, and a cocktail of emotions swirls behind her eyes as she imagines him behind that door attempting to wash himself clean of her in his eternal pursuit of forgiveness. Anger and frustration win out and force her off the bed and across the room before she’s even aware of what she’s doing. She tries the handle, grateful that the door isn’t locked, and presses in. Before she can chicken out, Kate tears back the curtain.

“The fuck–” Seth splutters, whipping around to her and averting his eyes to her nakedness. “Kate?!”

Kate steps into the shower and shivers at the blast of freezing cold water with which Seth is punishing himself. Already she can feel the cold beating away at her hangover, and Kate suspects she might still be a little drunk because she’s not sure it’s the smartest idea to surprise Seth Gecko when he’s naked and vulnerable without a plan of action or exit strategy.

Too late to back out now.

Water streams down his face and drips off his scruffy beard, and suddenly it’s the night before when everything still made sense and she wasn’t a mess of feelings for a man who practically defines _no good_. Kate blinks as Seth shakes his head and sends water droplets flying in her face. He’s careful to keep his gaze above her collarbone until he finally meets her eyes.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demands.

Without a strategy in place, Kate does the first thing she can think of.

She kisses him.

Yeah, she’s definitely still gotta be drunk.

Seth swerves away from her assault, his hands coming up to catch her waist and hold her at a distance. In the moment it takes him to register her action, she moves her mouth over his, and for a split second she thinks he’s gonna kiss her back.

It shouldn’t come as such a surprise when his hands roughly push her away, but her heart sinks to the bottom of her stomach. She should’ve known better than to think he would fall for this like the other boys she’s kissed. She should probably be embarrassed, but all she feels is the sting of his rejection.

“Don’t. Just stop, alright?” he says. “It’s not gonna happen.”

Seth grips her arm by the bicep and tries to tug her out of the shower, but Kate wrenches her arm free.

“Why are you doing this?” she asks.

“ _We_ ,” he says, gesturing between them, “are not doing this. You got that?” His voice rises to almost a shout. “This was a _mistake_. You’re too young. Jesus Christ, you’re still a goddamn _teenager_! You shouldn’t even be here. None of this should’ve happened. What the fuck was I thinking?”

“I remember what you said last night. You said I’m–”

“Kate, last night I was drunk off my ass. Whatever I told you was a bunch of _bullshit_ because I wanted to have a little fun. Look, I’m not gonna be your boyfriend, alright? You are barking up the wrong tree here.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Seth moves so fast that Kate flinches as he corners her against the wall, his arms forming a cage around her, and his thick biceps becoming pillars about her head. But this isn’t the same as when he’d held her last night. Despite the cold wall at her back, it’s the heat of his gaze that manages to pin her in place.

She’s not scared. She could never be afraid of him when he’s always been the one to look after her.

When he still has his promise to keep.

“You think I’m playing games with you, little girl?” he says, his voice dropping so low that it verges on a growl.

Kate releases a frustrated breath. “Let me go,” she demands, struggling to break free.

“What, you think I’m not such a bastard that you aren’t just some one-time thing for me?”

“Why are you saying this?”

“You think after a lifetime of conning and thieving I’m just gonna move to the suburbs and play house with you? Is that what you want?”

Kate gasps as Seth crowds into her. He’s pressed as close as he was last night when he’d welcomed himself to all of her secrets, and Kate grips his arms in her fight to put an inch between them, resisting the impulse to hold him even closer. He doesn’t even flinch when her fingernails dig deep enough to draw blood. Seth moves his knee between her thighs and Kate stiffens at the presence of his manhood against her belly.

“Or is this what you want?” Seth asks, rubbing himself against her. “’Cause I can give it to you, sweetheart,” he whispers against her ear. “That’s all I’m gonna be worth to you.”

Kate chokes back a sob.

Damn him. And damn her too because she wants him, will always want him, but not like this. Not when everything that comes out of his mouth is designed to keep her away. Not when he’s formed ammunition out of the shrapnel pieces of her shattered heart.

Not for the first time Kate wishes she could hate him.

“Let me go,” Kate whispers, her soft voice breaking.

Slowly, Seth takes a step back, leaving Kate shaking in the icy spray of the shower.

“Get out of here, Kate,” he says, not meeting her eyes.

Without a look back, Kate tears out of the bathroom, pulling on every piece of clothing she can find before reaching for her backpack and swiping the keys to the stolen Chevy from the table. The door slams behind her as she races for the car.

Sitting behind the wheel and gulping back a sob, Kate waits. She’s not sure what for. Except... no, she knows exactly what she’s waiting – hoping – for.

Several heartbeats later and he still doesn’t chase after her.

With tears blurring her vision, Kate starts the car and drives.

She’d been so stupid to think Seth could ever love her.

But it wouldn’t be the first time.


	3. Getaway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He should’ve known better to resist because nothing good ever comes of Seth Gecko getting what he wants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait!! Seth of course has decided in his usual Seth Gecko fashion to hijack this entire chapter, so I hope you enjoy! :P

Seth has a radar for detecting trouble, the utmost of which happens to be _Kate Fucking Fuller_.

He notices every little thing about her, the way she dresses up for him, makes up her face with dark lashes, red cheeks, and even redder lips – as if she needed any of that crap for him to think she was pretty when she already knocks him on his ass every time she _blinks_. And when the hem of her skirts started getting shorter, he noticed that too.

In his defense, Seth’s had his eyes trained on her from moment one. She’d be safe from crazies of every variety, be they fanged, fanatical, fucked up, or all of the above. He’d sworn to have her back, from the temple to the grave.

Or until she got bored of his ass and up and left on her own.

Nevertheless, he knew the _exact_ moment she walked into that bar, saw the bloodshot eyes of those college douchebags swivel in her direction. His hackles raised, Seth cracked his neck in preparation for a fight.

Telling her to skedaddle on home had been a useless pursuit, and if he thought her skirt was too short for such an establishment with the pricks on the prowl, it fell on deaf ears. So he threw his arm around her shoulders and eyed each and every asshole in that joint with a clear threat she was not to be messed with.

And if he scooted his chair a little closer to really drive that message home, rewarding himself with a whiff of that fruity shampoo she insisted on wasting money on, where was the harm in it?

A couple of tequila shots and lime wedges later, Kate was out of her chair and busting a move to _Rapper’s Delight_ in front of a roomful of likewise sloppy, drunken idiots. Seth watched with amused bewilderment as she danced and rapped along with Wonder Mike. After weeks of knowing her, he would never have taken Kate Fuller, preacher’s daughter, for an old school hip hopper.

He had to give it to her though. She wasn’t half bad.

“How the hell do you even know this song?” he asked.

“Scott,” she said, making sideways V signs over each of her eyes and giggling. She tugged on his arm and demanded he dance with her. “C’mon,” she whined when he put up a fuss and swatted her hands away.

“Nuh-uh, Lil Kim,” he said. “I’d need about a thousand more of these in me before I get my _Saturday Night Fever_ on.” He gestured at the shot glass in his hand, and just as he was about to take a drink, Kate snatched it away, holding it up at him tauntingly. Seth scoffed and simply poured himself another, tossing it back in one gulp before she could steal it too. Liquid dribbled down his chin and he wiped it on the sleeve of his jacket.

Kate stood watching, unimpressed as he threw her a cocky smile and reached for a lime and salt. Kate rolled her eyes, muttering something under her breath about alcohol poisoning even as she choked down the shot that’d been meant for him and went back to dancing alone.

Instead, he watched as she shook her head and swayed her hips to the beat, growing warm inside as though he’d swallowed the sun while the world gradually went fuzzy and started to spin, except for where Kate held steady in the center and everything seemed to revolve around her.

They left after midnight, and he shed his jacket and draped it around Kate’s shoulders to remain gentlemanly and keep the bite of the October wind off of her. He kept her tucked against his side as they made their way back to the motel, because Kate was liable to fall and break something if he didn’t keep her within arm’s reach. He’d had enough to drink that walking straight had become a challenge, so she was useful as a prop to keep from kissing the concrete himself.

Standing before their room, Kate giggled as she dug around in her purse for their key and slurred the lyrics to more songs she’d danced to. The key slipped out of her hands and onto the ground.

“Oops,” she snorted, reaching for the key and swaying into him when she stood back up too fast.

Fuck, she was so cute. He should’ve known better to resist because nothing good ever comes of Seth Gecko getting what he wants. But he was three sheets to the wind himself and not in any position to be checking his piss-poor decision making skills, never mind any of the thoughts he had zero business thinking.

Eyes focused on Kate’s mouth and all the things he wanted to do to her, Seth leaned down, surprising her with a kiss to her cherry red lips. She’d pulled away with a hitched breath and blinked up at him, but the heat of her mouth stayed with him even as he was blasted by the wind. An uneasy smile surfaced on her lips, and a lock of auburn hair fell into her face that she shyly tucked behind her ear.

She didn’t struggle when he put his arm around her waist and dragged her closer to take her mouth again.

And when he led her over to the bed, her too-short skirt hooked around her ankles and her arms hanging around his neck as he laid her down and dotted her body with kisses that had her sighing and uttering curse words he never thought he’d hear coming from Kate Fuller’s virtuous mouth, she never once told him to stop. Kate sang to him as he teased and sucked and kissed and licked and nipped until she trembled with tears in her eyes, his name spoken like one of the prayers she says before bedtime.

And up to a minute ago, he could still hear her as she sighed and swore and stuttered his name. Now her broken, strangled voice as she fought to escape him plays on repeat in his head like a record caught on a loop.

It would be his last memory of her.

Seth stands stock still in the shower with the water beating down on his back, and the realization suddenly hits him like a ton of bricks. In a pillowcase.

It’s like he’s taken the stairs too quickly and lost his footing, and there’s a brief moment where the world has fallen out from underneath him and he has to throw his hands up to block the full-force impact before he hits the ground.

Because falling for Kate?

It happened all by accident.

He fumbles for the shower knob to shut off the water. “Kate!” Seth’s shout is near frantic as he makes for the door. He slips on the tile, but grabs the counter to keep from falling. He runs to the front door and almost tears the thing off its hinges as he races outside just in time to see Kate peel out of the parking lot. The wheels of the Chevy screech as she books it, and the sting of burnt rubber reaches his nose.

He fucked up. And considering his laundry list of fuck-ups over the years, that’s saying something. Even that stint behind bars wasn’t nearly half as bad as this.

Hell, _divorcing Vanessa_ hadn’t even caused him this much of a headache, and she liked to throw various objects.

_Sharp_ ones.

Aimed directly at his head.

“... _is this what you want? ‘Cause I can give it to you, sweetheart_.”

Christ, what has he done?

He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t known how Kate wanted him. He could see it in her eyes. At first he’d thought it was just a schoolgirl crush, that she’d get over it. But Kate doesn’t do feelings halfway, he’s realized. And she’s been telegraphing her feelings for him all over the place for weeks.

Seth’s a good liar. Has to be in his line of work. And unfortunately for them, that ability is not something learned through osmosis. You either have it or you don’t, and Kate’s deception skills are amateurish at best. Hell, he never thought they’d fool anyone with the pretense that they were mere travel buddies with Kate making heart-eyes at him whenever she thought he wasn’t looking, but her sweet voice and innocence always pulled through for them when her capacity for telling tall tales let them down.

Lucky for them, there’s lots of fools out there ready to play the hero to Kate’s damsel in distress.

But no matter how good her decoy damsel act got, she could never convince the con artist she wasn’t in love with him.

He’d been determined to keep her from getting too attached, ignored it when over weeks spent in close quarters, her judging glares turned to lingering looks and softened into something like affection. He’d been a real bastard sometimes, throwing cutting remarks at her like shrapnel even knowing she’d done nothing to deserve it. When he agreed to let her tag along with him on this little Mexico excursion – admittedly one of his _weaker_ moments – _Kate_ and _feelings_ hadn’t even been two words that belonged in the same sentence.

Seth stifles a derisive laugh. He can’t help the lying when it comes to him second nature.

There have been few people Seth has ever given a shit about, and these days her name is at the top of that very short list. It’d been months since the Twister, but in the weeks since, he’d found something that’d been missing from his life for as long as he can remember. And it’d all come packaged in the form of a five-foot-nothing teenage girl.

Somehow, and he’s not entirely sure when, _Kate_ had become synonymous with _security_ and _balance_ in his fucked up life. He’d gotten too close. Too comfortable. He’d gotten too used to her, to a softness he’d never had as a kid, never found in his ex or any of the women he hooked up with. And every day there was some new word to add to his never-ending vocabulary list of all the things Kate had become.

And two words is all it had taken to undo months of keeping her away.

The night before comes back to him, and Seth remembers what _drunk Seth_ had had the ability to admit that he didn’t without first ingesting half a bottle of tequila:

_My girl_ , he’d said with his arm around her shoulders, warding off pricks who’d try to take advantage of her.

_My girl_ , he’d said between kisses to her sticky lips, the taste of innocence heady in his mouth.

_My girl_ , he’d whispered against the shell of her ear as she shuddered into him, her fingers clawing into his back while he rutted his hips into hers...

_My. Girl_.

_Mine_.

Last night... _meant_ something. But of all the words in the English language, he couldn’t find one word to define exactly what.

No. Not _couldn’t_. _Wouldn’t_. When defining it meant he had to face what he felt.

When naming it makes it _real_.

And when things get real... he can’t help but feel like running.

Seth wasn’t thinking of anything beyond getting Richie the fuck out of Texas, and hoping that distance and a couple of margaritas by the beach would somehow fix whatever was wrong with his brother. He expected Caribbean sunsets, girls in bikinis, sand getting into places it shouldn’t, and more money than he could spend in a lifetime.

Kate had never been part of that equation. She was never supposed to be anything except a means to an end. A solution simple as _Sesame Street_ to a problem that needed taking care of. He could have gotten anyone to help them cross over into Mexico. Anyone would have done the trick.

But out of the millions of possibilities, of all the roads he could have taken, _she_ had to be the one to cross his path.

Sometimes he has to wonder if her family had been _chosen_ for the job. Not by him, but by something greater than himself maybe. If there hadn’t been some other unlucky folks at that motel that he couldn’t have shanghaied into his exploits...

But something about Kate’s family had called to him. Something in him had to have known then, in that moment between almost getting slammed by that Winnebago and finding her young, pretty face sitting behind the steering wheel, that she would be the one to save him.

Seth’s never put much stock in the idea of a predetermined destiny, and he sure as hell could never bring himself to believe the crap that snake bitch spouted about prophecies. But if he could ever figure out why it had to be _Kate_ of all people to right his conscience and put feelings back into his heart...

She might just make a believer out of him.

He’d never meant to treat Kate like just another hookup, or a body to fill his bed. And he sure as hell never meant to chase away the last person to give a damn about him. She could be long gone given her head start, and him without a vehicle...

That’s an easy fix. There are dozens of cars around here prime for hijacking. And, well, this is _Mexico_.

Seth starts to move towards the first car he sees, a Jeep Cherokee with Texas plates, when he stops and remembers the state of himself – barefoot and naked except for a towel he’d somehow had the decency to throw on before running out into the street in his half-cocked attempt to chase after Kate. In the time it would take for him to get dressed and commandeer another vehicle, she’d be even farther away...

Assuming he could even _find_ her by then. If he tracked her down, what then? Did he think a simple apology would be enough? After all the shit he put her through?

What was he gonna do?

Ask her to _stay_?

He could do that, he realizes. And she wouldn’t even think twice about following him, would she?

_From the temple to the grave_. Surviving the Titty Twister and finding her at the end of that maze shrouded in daylight like a gleaming trophy in the winner’s circle, he’d sped away from that nightmare with more than a stranger by his side.

One word from him and she would be back, he was sure of it. They would be all each other needed, all each other has. Kate hands out second chances like the damned Holy Mother, and no matter how many times she’s been hurt, Seth knows he will always be forgiven.

And if she stayed... there would _always_ be more that she would have to forgive.

Seth shakes his head.

Somewhere inside him, he’s always known that he and Kate could never last, that he’d have to cut ties with her one way or another. As if last night wasn’t evident enough, Kate introduced all kinds of trouble all on her own, short skirts, red lips, doe eyes, and all. But for her own sake, there was no way Seth could let her stay. Not when he’s always known that keeping Kate with him might get her killed. Or worse.

It was just a matter of time until shit hit the fan again. He could feel it. Especially with the trouble that sticks to him like a 5 o’clock shadow. Maybe he even goes looking for it sometimes, just to keep things interesting. His pops would say a little bit of trouble looks good on a man like him.

Between shootouts and fanged fuckers, creepy professors, and his _brother_ , Seth had protected Kate through it all. He only has himself to blame that she’d had to suffer any of it in the first place. He _won’t_ let it happen again. Not if he can help it. Even if he has to stay far away from her to see to it that it doesn’t. Her world has already been turned upside down enough as it is. But she could still go home and find _normal_. He won’t take that away from her. He won’t be the thing that haunts her years after he’s out of her life for good.

He knew it would hurt her, finally getting her to say goodbye. He just didn’t expect that pain to be reciprocated.

Falling into bed with Kate had been all too simple with the booze making it easy to pretend he was someone else, someone deserving of taking what she was offering. But it didn’t matter whether or not he believed the lie the alcohol sold him.

He’d been the same old bastard his pops had accused him of being from the very beginning.

No, it’s better that she get out now while she still can. Before she suffers something worse than a broken heart or some hurt feelings. Before he drags her into something she won’t be able to get out of.

While he’s still strong enough to let her go.

Seth lets out a string of nasty curses, feeling his neck grow hot with built-up inward rage.

There’s a woman with a small child in her arms just exiting the room three doors down who stops in her tracks and stares at him, mortified by Seth’s bare chest and skimpy towel and the language of devils that pours from his mouth.

“The fuck you staring at?” he sneers before turning back to his room. He punches the door open and lets it slam behind him. He reaches for his drug kit on the table, disappointed to find it empty of what he craves. With a snarl, he throws it across the room where it hits the opposite wall, and Seth falls into one of the cheap motel chairs, dropping his head back to stare up at the cracked ceiling.

Kate had taken all her belongings, but she left him the spoils of their recent bank heist. He grabs the meager stack of bills secured by a rubber band, counts it as he flips through it, then counts it again and almost wishes she’d taken it with her.

A car can get her away from him, but the money would have taken her further.

Seth rises from the chair and goes about the room, putting on each piece of his clothing as he finds it. He smoothes down the front of his jacket in a useless attempt to flatten the wrinkles, and comes to a stop in front of the bed.

The sheets are still rumpled with traces of their night together, and another flash from the night before hits him. He sees her strewn out on the bed, her mouth red and abused, green eyes hooded, her hair fanned out like a dark halo about her head, her legs parted and inviting. Kissing his way up her body, he’d fitted himself between her thighs, her legs squeezing his waist. Her arms cupped his neck and drew him closer. He fell into her, rasped her name against her ear. She’d let loose a pained gasp that he covered with his mouth as he’d broken into her and taken and taken and taken...

And she’d taken him right back, crashing her hips against his as he devoured her mouth, and welcoming each of his thrusts, accepting all that he had to give.

And afterwards she’d held him, his head pillowed against her breasts, lulled to sleep by her soft voice and her fingers in his hair.

He can’t take back what he’s done. But he’d tell her he’s the sorriest son of a bitch in the world if that’s what it took to deserve last night with her. If that’s what it took to get her back. He’d beg on his knees.

He’d tell her he lo–

No.

_She’s gone_.

Seth never meant to be the worst thing to happen to Kate Fuller, but there isn’t any use in apologizing for that now. She’s gone, and she ain’t ever coming back.

Seth grabs the wad of cash from the table and stuffs it in the pocket of his suit jacket, determined to find another fix.

_It’s all for the best_.


	4. Cigarettes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate blinks the tears out of her eyes, longing for something, _anything_ , to fill the emptiness that takes up so much room inside of her, even if it only lasts for a breath or two…

When things go to hell, Kate runs to the water.

Sometimes, she thinks, she just can’t breathe with all this air.

She pulls up to the coast and stumbles out of the car, kicking off her boots as she treks across the beach to the shoreline. The only thing stopping her from diving in and sinking into its depths is the one link she has to the heart she left behind in that motel room.

Kate _swears_ she feels the phone vibrate against her leg, and fishes into her pocket to retrieve the device. She flips it open, hoping to see Seth’s name flash across the screen.

But like all of the other ghosts haunting her steps these days, it’d just been another phantom. A trick of the mind. The desperate optimism of a girl in love. Kate sinks to the ground, gripping her phone in her clenched fist and chokes back a sob.

It’s stupid to hope, and she knows better by now that _hoping_ always comes with a large side of disappointment when what she wants clashes with what she can never have. But she doesn’t have it in her to let that hope die. At least, not yet.

Kate wonders if it’s her curse to always be searching for signs and praying for miracles. Because it’s still her second nature to believe in them, no matter how many times she’s been let down.

She never thought she’d be _that_ girl, waiting by the phone for a boy to call. Kyle had never left her hanging. When they were together, he’d been the very definition of the perfect boyfriend and called exactly when he promised he would. Of course, Kyle had also turned out to be a deceitful jerk, so maybe this behavior isn’t entirely out of character for her either.

Kate stares at the phone and wills it to ring.

The phone ignores her unspoken pleas and stays silent as ever.

She’s tempted to throw it into the ocean. Instead, she tucks it back into her pocket, feeling that last glimmer of hope diminish as she watches the wind toss the water and storm gray clouds build in the distance. A chill runs through her as the air pressure drops and the heavens charge with an electricity that starts an eruption of goosebumps up and down her exposed arms. Kate shivers, wrapping her arms around her middle to hug warmth back into herself. Lightning pierces the sky off the coast, illuminating a wall of rain as it makes its approach.

Seth Gecko brings a flood with him wherever he goes, biblical in his devastation. He is gale force winds of aggression and thunder clapping passion, lightning bursts of cruelty with earth-battering rainwater fists.

But in the eye of Seth Gecko, in that bittersweet calm between walls of thunder, when the roar of the wind stops and the torrential rain dissolves to mist, when the sun emerges once more through swollen clouds of unforgotten traumas and a blue sky hope returns… that’s when he loves her.

She knows it won’t last.

It’s not enough that his sweetness can be like the forgiving scent of earth after the rain, when with a cold snap of his tongue he zaps all the warmth between them to fuel his self-destructive cyclone of misery. When in the aftermath of his storm he leaves her in ruins.

When he’s so afraid of turning into what scares him the most that he has started to become the very monster that has haunted him since his childhood.

Thunder rumbles in the distance, a growl on the wind, and Kate buries her face against her thighs.

She already feels like she’s met that monster—a man whose name she doesn’t even know, but knows how Seth trembles in his nightly terrors when he relives some horror from his youth. She met him this morning when Seth turned on her with words sharp as claws and aimed directly for her weak spots. So she’d done what anyone in their right mind would do when faced with a monster.

She ran.

And she doesn’t have to stop there. She could keep running. She could run all the way home right now, and pick up the pieces of her life back in Bethel. The border is _right there_. It would be so easy. She could be stateside again by tonight if she wanted. The men in uniforms wouldn’t have to know about the bad things she’s done, the laws she’s broken as Seth’s partner in crime. With the help of a few tears, she could get them to believe anything she wanted.

She could call Freddie.

Kate tries not to feel guilty by how much that seems like giving up.

Even when she’d had no other options, going to Freddie had still never been her last resort. Not when she still had Seth. When Seth was all she needed. No, pretending she had no other options had given her all the excuse she’d needed to _stay_. And Seth had never suggested any reason she should leave.

Until today.

Kate’s heart gives a lurch. The bitter aftertaste of this morning still burns at the back of her throat.

She has the car now. All of this could be over, she tells herself. She could go home and try to have a normal life again…

Kate scoffs.

_Normal?_

A few months ago normal looked like trying on Prom dresses with Jessica at the mall, and walking across a stage to receive her diploma. Normal was going away to college and only coming home for the holidays. Kate had had the whole next decade of her life all planned out: she was going to finish school, start a career, fall in love, get married, begin a family…

It never fails that every time she thinks she has nothing left to lose, she finds something new to mourn.

Tears slip from her eyes for that impossible future.

No. There won’t be any going back. There won’t really be anything to go back _to_ , will there? Bethel won’t be anything more than a graveyard of memories of the girl she used to be. The place she once called home now nothing more than a haunted house full of the ghosts of a life that can no longer be salvaged. Her mama will still be buried, her daddy will still be dead, Scott will still be missing, and Seth…

 _Seth_.

She’ll still be in love with him.

Kate lets out an incredulous laugh that quickly turns into a strangled cry.

In those days after the Twister, when only the familiarity of each other was all they could take, she and Seth had made their own kind of normal. She’d found it riding shotgun on long, dusty roads, in the thrill she’d get when pretending to browse convenience store aisles and trying to appear harmless even with a gun wedged into the back of her jeans. And when Seth’s reassuring hand would appear on her lower back as he ushered her to the car with extra money in his pocket, she found it in the wiggly feeling in the pit of her stomach when he’d smile and tell her _good job_.

Normal had become disappearing to a new town each week. It’d become falling into musty mattresses in dumpy middle-of-nowhere motels, too exhausted to sleep. And on days when she’d been overwhelmed by memories and too sad to even eat, Kate would glance over at Seth behind the steering wheel and think _at least she had this_.

The sound of the waves unleashes a rush of memories of the last twenty-four hours, and she can’t help remembering the horrible things Seth had said. Yet, she wonders why she’s finding it so hard to leave.

Why can’t she just get her ass up and _go_ already?

She can’t even move.

With Seth, more days had been bad than not. Between his heroin addiction and his general surliness, it was enough to make her want to find a vice of her own. She can’t help feeling the draw towards the remembered taste of Richie’s Red Apple cigarettes. She’d found the nearly full pack just lying there abandoned on the front seat of the RV and pocketed it. She’s carried the cigarettes with her all this time, always hidden on her person, somewhere where Seth wouldn’t find them and make her throw them out. She’d never smoked any, hadn’t really enjoyed the taste. And she hardly needed a _plant_ taking over her life when she had so little control over everything else. But she’d been unwilling to leave them behind.

She’s conned, she’s robbed, she’s fucked, and she’s killed. On this side of sinning, she’s not sure if it means anything anymore that she still hasn’t smoked even one cigarette. Seth would never have allowed it.

 _Seth isn’t here_.

Kate blinks the tears out of her eyes, longing for something, _anything_ , to fill the emptiness that takes up so much room inside of her, even if it only lasts for a breath or two…

She isn’t a smoker, she tells herself even as she fetches the Red Apples from her jeans pocket. Kate already knows the life of an addict when she _aches_ for Seth’s touch the same way he craves his fix.

Kate tucks the cigarette between two trembling fingers and inhales the raisin-like scent of unlit tobacco, remembering that first hit by the pool. Like she’d lit a fire in her mouth.

One cigarette doesn’t make her a smoker, she promises herself as she pulls a lighter from her pocket and thumbs the sparker.

It’s like she’s been put under some dizzying spell as she lights up and inhales a second first taste that leaves her light-headed and slightly nauseous. The woody taste of tobacco fills her mouth, reminding her of a dusty summer morning with a too-bright sun that contrasted with the hurt in Seth’s eyes.

Kate sucks the smoke into her lungs and thinks of climbing into the passenger seat of a bullet hole riddled car and driving off into the sunrise beside a criminal.

She holds the smoke in her lungs, feels it begin to burn like the third degree kisses she’d received the night before, kisses that had left Seth’s name branded on her lips. The best worst taste she could ever imagine.

But it’s only a temporary fix. It won’t fill the void of him.

Kate exhales and takes another drag.

He’d told her a story once, just weeks after their lives turned into nightmares. She found herself on a beach. A massive storm had blown through earlier that day, leaving sea glass and seashells washed up on the shore which made for easy pickings. She collected as many as she could carry in the fold of her t-shirt before planting herself in the sand right up against the shoreline to watch the sunset as the tide receded, her treasures in a pile beside her. Seth snuck up behind her, making her jump.

“Ugh, I wish you’d stop doing that,” she muttered.

“Gotta watch your back, Princess. This is Mexico, after all.”

“Why bother when I have you to do it for me?” she’d teased.

Seth sat beside her in the sand, complaining the whole time when it got into places it didn’t belong. For someone who kept saying he wanted to own a place by the beach someday, he sure hated sand.

“It’s beautiful,” Kate sighed, leaning back on her elbows to watch the sky bloom before her eyes. She half expected Seth to make some snarky comment, but he remained silent. When she finally looked over at him, she found him transfixed by the view.

“Haven’t you ever been to the beach before?” she asked. He talked about it enough, so she’d just assumed.

Seth stared, fixated on the water.

“Earth to Gecko?” she said, giggling as she snapped her fingers in front of his face.

Seth blinked and met her eyes. “Uh, yeah,” he said. “Loads of times.”

Funny. With the way he was looking at the water, it was like the first time he’d ever seen it.

“Five years old the first time I saw the ocean,” Seth said, helping himself to her pile of seashells. He plucked a scalloped shell still covered in sand, and fiddled with it between his fingers. Kate smiled as she pictured a young Seth Gecko, wide-eyed and innocent as he stared out at the endless ocean before him with the same wonder so clear in his eyes now. “My mom,” he continued, and Kate sat up straighter.

He never talked about his past, kept it locked up tight and guarded it like a dragon anytime she dared to ask. It was the first thing she learned about him, never to bring up family. She suspected he had very few good memories from his childhood. Kate held her breath, straining her ears to hear what he’d say next.

“She woke me and Richie in the middle of the night, put us in the car, and drove south all the way to the beach. When we woke up there she was, big and blue just like I’d seen in the pictures,” he said, a smile emerging on his face. “We must’ve combed every inch of that beach looking for all the biggest shells we could find.” He turned over the seashell in his hand and thumbed at the layer of sand until the shell was clean and she could see a coral pink painting the inside of it.

“Richie—he found this huge shell with a crab inside. It was a mean little fucker, snapping at us all pissed off. We thought it was so cool. Of course, he wouldn’t leave it alone, and it pinched him. He _screamed_ , like he was being murdered or something. I thought he was gonna die,” Seth laughed.

Kate giggled, imagining the two of them as little boys playing in the sand. “What’s she like? Your mom?”

The smile disappeared from Seth’s face and he shrugged. “I don’t know. I barely got to know her,” he said. “But she looked like me, I guess. Same hair, brown eyes. A bit older than you maybe… but not by much,” he added with a grimace. “’Course, I thought it was all one big vacation, y’know? Didn’t occur to me to question why we’d left without my Pop. Didn’t realize she’d been _running_.”

Judging from the look on his face, it wasn’t the sort of story with a happy ending.

“We never made it to the border,” he continued. “Nah, instead she went back to _him_.” Seth clenched the shell in his fist. “She took off again a few months after and didn’t take us with her. She just up and fucking left, and for the longest time I wondered… what had I done? Maybe… if I had just been better… maybe she wouldn’t have left me with _him_.”

Kate had no words of comfort to offer and stayed silent.

“Jesus, she was _sixteen_ when she had me,” he spat. “No wonder she left. She was still just a _goddamn_ _kid!_ ” Seth chucked the seashell at the water.

Sadness welled up in the pit of Kate’s stomach when she realized there was something haunting him too. That their ghosts happened to be the same.

“My mama… she tried to kill herself,” Kate confessed, and she felt Seth stiffen beside her. “She overdosed on God knows what, and my dad… he wrecked the car trying to save her. She… died.” Kate gave a shaking breath as the vision she’d seen in the temple played behind her eyes where it could never be erased: Her mom swallowing a whole bottle of prescription pills Kate had never seen before. _You can’t save a life that’s not worth saving_ , her mom had said, and Kate will never forget the look on her mother’s face. The pain. The suffering.

Kate finally understood why her dad had never wanted to talk about that night, when he’d done everything and nothing to save her.

Because he’d waited too long to get her the help she _really_ needed.

“If the accident hadn’t been what killed her, she would have done it herself,” Kate said. She stared off into the sunset until her eyes overflowed and she had to close them to block the rush of tears. She could sense Seth’s gaze on her, but willed herself to be strong in his presence.

Kate would never blame her mother for the illness that drove her to suicide, but it didn’t stop her from feeling like she’d been left behind too.

It wasn’t until she felt the unexpected tap of Seth’s pinky finger against hers in the sand, followed by his palm closing over the top of her hand that she could no longer hold back the flood of her tears. A sob escaped her, and Seth gave her hand a comforting squeeze. She squeezed back.

“I guess we’ve got something in common after all,” she’d laughed, tears slipping from her eyes.

He didn’t have to say anything for her to know that he agreed. Seth’s hand became a welcome weight in hers and remained there until she’d finished crying. And when the sun had finally disappeared beyond the horizon, Seth stood, dusting off his slacks. Kate wiped the wetness off her cheeks and gazed up at him as he stared off at the approaching night.

“Whaddya say we get out of here, Princess?” he asked, extending his hand to her.

She took it.

Just like she always would.

A clap of thunder shatters the bittersweet memory, and the first drops of rain drizzle down on Kate’s head. The wind picks up, sending the waves rolling on the ocean and her hair twisting in tendrils around her neck.

The roar of the waves crash in her ears, and she’s enveloped by a rush of cold air that has her longing for the warmth of Seth’s arms. Kate remembers herself tumbling into him the night before, tipsy on Cuervo and the lime taste of his lips. Seth’s clumsy fingers as they tugged her blouse from her skirt, fumbled with his zipper, and shed the rest of their clothes as he took her to the bed. Her heart’s staccato beat when he rasped her name against her ear and fitted himself between her thighs. The clash of their lips, their tongues, their bodies, and his name repeating like an echo on her heart.

All that shattered this morning with his insistence that he hadn’t wanted any of it.

Falling in love with Seth Gecko was easy as breathing. But loving him is a lot harder than she ever imagined when he takes as much as he gives, when he leaves her light-headed and a little off balance, like her first drag off a cigarette.

Kate wipes the tears off her face and uncurls from the ball she’s made of herself. She stubs out her half-burned cigarette in the sand, and weighs the rest of the pack on her palm.

One addiction is more than enough, she decides.

So she digs a hole in the sand, drops the pack inside, and buries it. She stands and brushes herself off before collecting her discarded boots and walking barefoot back to the car.

Kate has only just climbed behind the steering wheel when she feels the vibration of her cell phone in her pocket. She wrestles for her phone and almost curses herself for falling for the same tricks again when it remains unmoving.

Then the phone vibrates in her hand.

Kate starts and nearly drops her phone. _Not a trick_. This time it’s definitely for real, and she struggles with graceless fingers to open the text she’s just received.

From: Seth  
Are you coming back?

Kate gasps and clutches the steering wheel with her free hand, staring in disbelief at the text.

If she’s still praying for a sign—and, God knows, she is—this is it.

The bright screen shines up at her, and she sits there staring at the words for so long that the phone goes to sleep. Kate fumbles with the button to bring the screen back to life and reads the text again.

_Are you coming back?_

She already knows her answer. She’s known it since she tore out of that room with her heart in her throat and tears in her eyes. She’d known it the morning she’d run away with him, and she’d known it every morning since.

Where Seth goes, he takes a flood with him.

It’s a good thing then, Kate thinks, that she can swim.


	5. Bad Desire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She sometimes fools herself into believing this—whatever _this_ is between them—could last forever. But maybe that’s all a part of the charm, the _lie_ of Seth Gecko.
> 
> Believing you could keep him.

There’s got to be worse things than falling for Seth Gecko.

There _must_ be.

But not much else comes to mind.

Clutching her phone hard enough to turn her knuckles white, Kate reads the text over and over until she doesn’t even see the words anymore and all she knows is _anger_. Once the relief that he’d reached out to her had worn off, it’d become crystal clear he isn’t going to be sending any more texts.

He’s always been so good with words. Funny, _now_ he has nothing more to say?

_From: Seth  
Are you coming back?_

That’s it? No _sorry for being such an asshole_ , no _I didn’t mean those crappy things I said_ , no _baby I love you, you deserve better please come home_?

No begging? No groveling?

No apology whatsoever?

She won’t accuse him of making her fall in love with him. For that, she’s got no one but herself to blame. Seth manipulates a lot of things, but he’d never been able to control a damn thing her heart does. And if there’d been any controlling it, he’d have put a stop to it ages ago.

But last night still lingers in her mind. With the alcohol in her veins, she didn’t give herself a chance to think. She’d let go of everything holding her back from what she wanted. And when she’d taken Seth’s kisses and met them with her own, she’d _meant_ it.

Kate reads the text one more time, swallowing back the beginnings of tears.

After everything he’d done to get her to fall into bed with him, when he must have _known_ what sleeping with him would mean to her, _this_ is all he has? Kate has to wonder if he even _wants_ to see her again, because he currently doesn’t seem all that pressed to win back her affections. Of course, it’s her own damn fault for being stupid and naive enough to hope he could bring himself to apologize.

After all they’ve been through, could she really mean so _little_ to him?

Well, she guesses, if there’s one thing Seth’s good at, it’s throwing people away, right? Look at what he did to his _brother_.

Kate bites back a bitter laugh and tosses her phone into the Chevy’s middle console, giving it the middle finger in spirit.

It’s just, sometimes when he smiles at her, she thinks she might see a future there. Not quite the white picket fences he’d been so adamant he could never give her when he pressed himself close in that shower and growled his insecurities at her. But _some_ kind of future. One where they could even be happy together.

It’s just... when she looks at him she _knows_ it’s love.

It wouldn’t hurt this much if it was anything else.

And when he isn’t putting on a performance, she sometimes fools herself into believing this—whatever _this_ is between them—could last forever. But maybe that’s all a part of the charm, the _lie_ of Seth Gecko.

Believing you could keep him.

He _wants_ to forget. She knows. That’s what Seth Gecko _does_. With just a smile and a joke, every wrong he’s ever done gets swept under the rug because he’s learned by now that she won’t fight him. He gets a new blank slate every time he lets her down. And if that doesn’t work, he escapes down a rabbit hole of needles and alcohol to numb himself, escapes to a place she can never follow. In just seconds he can be in a fantasy and leave her behind to shoulder reality for the both of them. He puts that needle to his skin and he leaves her all alone. It’s when he’s high and his demons manifest in his constricted pupils and clammy skin and unbridled anger that she comes face to face with the only monster that might scare her more than all the horrors she’d seen down in that temple. A monster she’s getting to know very well these days.

 _Temporary_ , a voice at the back of her head whispers. Maybe that’s all they ever were. All they were ever meant to be, and he’d seen the expiration date on their days together from moment one. She didn’t want to see it before, but maybe that’s what has defined their relationship from the very beginning.

An incredulous laugh bubbles out of Kate’s mouth as she starts the engine and pulls out onto the road, windshield wipers running at full speed.

Well, here’s one thing she’s _not_ going to do: text him back. The last thing she wants right now is to admit defeat and give up whatever remains of her dignity. Not that she has much left to lose.

Seth had made damn sure of that.

Kate hazards a glance at her phone, lying immobile in the spot where she’d flung it.

She won’t text him, she promises herself.

She _won’t_.

Besides, yelling through a text won’t cut it. And she is _not_ about to chance wrecking the car because she’d been too busy _texting_ to pay attention to the road.

No. It’ll just have to be in person.

And who says she has to stop at yelling? She could strangle him, for instance. Surely, asphyxiating the man she loves would be much more satisfying—which depending on how things go when she sees him again could very well still be in the cards.

Not to mention, Seth would most certainly have feelings about that. Already she can picture the infuriating smirk on his face anytime she’s ever had _feelings_ around him. Seth barely does emotions that aren’t anger and annoyance, and never mind ever taking her _seriously_.

Lightning flashes in the distance, followed by a growl of thunder, and Kate prepares for a fight. In her mind she pictures a sword and shield, and maybe some black leather and dramatic eye makeup to go with it, because why the hell not? If she’s going to confront Seth Gecko’s demons, she’ll need a cool outfit, right?

She’ll need to be ready for a lot of things. She’ll need to be ready for the possibility that all this ends in heartache. For the possibility that some demons are here to stay.

But if there’s one thing she’s learned in all her time with Seth Gecko, it’s how to slay monsters.

Except...

Except.

That’s not her, is it? That imaginary warrior she’s dreamed up. That girl who wields weapons and anger instead of love.

 _That’s not her_.

Her daddy had always preached forgiveness and second chances back when he’d still been Pastor Fuller. And every Sunday morning she’d be sitting in the front pew, absorbing every word he said. Love and forgiveness had always come so easy to her. There’d been no end of it back home in Bethel, Texas.

“ _That’s how you get through the day, right?_ ”

Tears sting at the back of her eyes, and Kate takes her hand off the steering wheel to swipe at the wetness on her cheeks. At the next red light she finds her phone back in her hands, her thumbs poised over the keyboard.

Corinthians 13:8: Love never fails. If there’s anything she chooses to believe in, it’s _this_.

 _I’m coming_ , she types out before the obstinate side of her brain can catch up to her fingers, and hits _send_ before she can convince herself not to.

Seth had demanded forgiveness once and she’d given it, though it hadn’t felt like much of a choice back then. After being kidnapped, held at gunpoint, and having her life threatened, she’d be fooling herself if she said she didn’t know what kind of man he was. But she’d seen something in him when he’d assured her nothing would happen to her. She hadn’t believed he was beyond forgiveness then.

And it’s never been in Kate to give up on the ones she loves.

Kate grips her mother’s gold cross around her neck, and in her head Warrior Kate lays down her sword. Somehow, love still finds its way back to her, filling her with a warmth she hadn’t realized was even missing.

“ _Now like it or not, we are a family. A broken, messed up, sad excuse for a family. But goddammit, we got love for each other, don’t we?_ ”

Like it or not, he’s all she has left. And if last night truly was nothing more than a mistake to him... Well, at the very least, she owes it to herself to find out for sure.

From here on out it’s all or nothing.

Worry pools in her gut for what comes after this if _nothing_ is all he has left to give. But she’s survived worse things than Seth Gecko. So she knows she’ll survive losing him too.

Pressing a kiss to her mother’s cross, Kate prays she’s not wrong.

* * *

The rain hasn’t let up by the time she makes it home.

As she takes the turn to the motel, Kate sucks in a deep breath, preparing herself for any number of outcomes. Warrior Kate may have been benched for this fight, but that doesn’t mean she has to be _nice_ to be forgiving.

Kate pulls into the parking lot and cuts the engine. All the fight in her dies the moment she discovers no lights on in the window of their room. Her heart gives a painful lurch.

_He’s not there._

Furious at herself for daring to hope for a happy ending, Kate yanks open the driver’s side door, grabbing for her backpack in the passenger seat. The wooden stake she never goes anywhere without rolls out of her bag and lands on the rain-soaked ground with a splash. Seth insisted she carry it with her for her own protection. And just because he isn’t around to protect her now doesn’t mean she’s about to start being careless. Kate curses as she climbs out of the car in the pouring rain and bends to pick up her runaway stake, tucking it into the back of her jeans.

“Miss Kate?”

Kate yelps at the sound of her name uttered from somewhere in the dark. She whirls around only to see a figure emerge from the shadows. Kate breathes a sigh of relief that it’s just the friendly motel night manager.

“Gabriel,” Kate says, clutching her hand to her chest. “You scared me.”

“Lo siento,” Gabriel says as he approaches her. “I had to make sure you were safe.”

Kate attempts a smile, but barely manages a grimace. Her heart sunken with the thought that Seth ditched her—maybe with no intention of ever coming back—Kate stands helpless in the rain. “You didn’t see Seth by any chance, did you?” she asks, her throat tight with holding back the threat of tears. She shivers, her white tank top and blue button-up already soaked through. Kate blinks water out of her eyes, thankful that in this rain no one would be able to tell she’s been crying.

“Miss Kate, estás bien?” Gabriel closes his fingers around her arm to guide her under the veranda and out of the rain. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“No,” she says, and she’s not even sure which question she’s answered, given the wobble in her voice.

“I came by to bring you towels for your hair. When you didn’t answer, I got worried.” Gabriel gives a self-deprecating smile. “A sweet girl like you shouldn’t be out by herself so late. Especially not in this weather.”

Gabriel has always proven to be rather watchful, and she figures he must have seen Seth. He is the _night manager_ after all. He must know _something_.

“You didn’t see Seth leave?” she asks, hopeful. She’d had the car, so he must have gone on foot. He can’t be too far. Not with the rain.

Gabriel shakes his head and _tsks_ at her. It doesn’t escape Kate that he hasn’t answered any of her questions about Seth. “What?” she asks, narrowing her eyes at him.

“He is a bad man, Kate. You have been hurt enough by him already.”

She has no idea what he’s talking about, until Gabriel gestures at the laundry cart parked nearby. Piled right on top are the bed sheets torn from Seth’s bed, the bloodstain from the night she’d spent with him visible plain as day.

“What,” Kate gasps. “You think he _raped_ me?” She can barely choke out the words when the idea of it alone is unthinkable. Seth may have a skewed moral code, but never once did she not feel safe with him.

Not when he still has his promise to keep.

Gabriel gives her a pitying look, shaking his head in dismay. It’s as good as any answer.

“It wasn’t like that! I-I wanted—” The excuses she owes are precisely none, and Kate snaps her mouth shut.

The disgust that rolls across Gabriel’s features is hard to miss. “I’ve seen you crying. He was not good for you, Kate,” he says.

Kate stiffens, her blood running cold.

_Was?_

“If you did something to him...” Kate threatens. She doesn’t know what she’ll do. Her heart gives a stutter at the mere thought of Seth injured or dead. She left the gun inside with Seth and inwardly curses herself for not considering how it might save her life in a situation like this.

Kate inches her fingers towards the wooden stake wedged in the back of her jeans, careful not to tip Gabriel off to the weapon hidden behind her back. Stabbing someone in the heart tends to be a good enough way to kill any asshole, vampire or not.

Seth had made it clear on several occasions how much he despises the nosy night manager, and Kate is beginning to see why. She’d always thought Gabriel was just being hospitable because it was his job. Except, that attentiveness had never extended to Seth, had it? Now, Kate slants her eyes at the night manager she’d come to trust against Seth’s better judgment.

Come to think of it... she’d never once seen Gabriel out during daylight. Not even in the waning light of dusk.

 _Night_ manager.

Of course.

Kate gasps. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?” she says. “A bloodsucker?”

Gabriel’s eyes flash yellow, the snake-like slit of his pupils confirming her suspicions. At least now she won’t feel so bad about killing him if she has to. As much as it pains her to consider it, she’s not entirely sure culebras even count as people. Gabriel hisses, and Kate shakes away her guilt over her brother. There’s no time for remorse with someone she thought she could trust morphing into something unholy right before her eyes. Green scales emerge on Gabriel’s cheeks and forehead before relaxing once more into human form.

But he can’t hide the fangs.

“You were in my room,” Kate accuses, backing away from Gabriel. How many times had he brought extra towels as a flimsy excuse just to get close to her? And there was that time Seth reamed her out for not locking the door when she could have _sworn_ she had... Had Gabriel come by then too? Had he spied on her while she slept? Her stomach turns at just the thought of him going through her and Seth’s things.

Kate tenses at a sudden realization and reaches into her pocket for her phone. A quick press of a button and she has Seth on speed dial. When she hears the vibration of a phone in Gabriel’s jeans pocket, her heart drops to the bottom of her stomach.

“It was you! You sent me that text!”

“I just want to help you,” Gabriel says, his speech impeded by the fangs protruding from his gums. “You don’t have to be afraid anymore. Your heart is still pure. You can have a new beginning.”

“And become just like you?” Kate hisses. She didn’t survive a night of hell at the Titty Twister and all these months on the run with Seth just to get turned into a bloodsucking demon _now_. “That’s never going to happen,” Kate snarls.

“He will destroy you both.”

“Stay away from me, and stay the hell away from Seth. Or _I swear to God_ I will kill you.”

“Kate,” Gabriel pleads. He makes a move towards her, his hand outstretched—

_No!_

Kate strikes out with her stake and slashes at Gabriel’s throat. She blinks in surprise and steps back from the spray of blood as Gabriel gasps and clutches the wound at his neck. Without hesitation, Kate rushes him, thrusting her stake up into his chest, underneath the ribs just like Seth taught her. Gabriel groans and burns away to nothing but ash.

A snake isn’t any kind of substitute for a heart.

Not a moment to spare, Kate sprints to her room, banging on the door. Hands shaking and high on adrenaline, Kate barely manages to retrieve her key and get the door unlocked—

—only to find Seth sprawled face down on the bed.

“Seth!” she cries, hurling herself across the room to get to his side. Fingers trembling, Kate feels for a pulse at his neck. He doesn’t look like he’s been sucked dry. Her eyes glancing over every visible inch of his body, Kate searches for new bite marks—easy to do with him in his underwear. She doesn’t see any new marks, but what she _does_ see is his drug kit and an empty syringe discarded by his thigh. Still, she gasps and chokes back tears when Seth takes a breath, torn between anger that he’s _high_ and the fear of thinking him dead, and overcome with the urge to strangle him for real.

If only she could fit her hands around his neck.

Instead, Kate climbs onto the bed and curses him even as she hugs him close and strokes his stupid face.

“Kate? W-what are you doing here?” Seth groans, blinking up at her through a sluggish haze, his pupils constricted to pinpricks. “No,” he moans, pushing at her with weak arms, but it’s the wild look in his eyes that scares her. “No, no, no, you can’t be here! You have to go!”

“What?” Kate asks, stricken. His words are like a fatal blow to the chest. Tears halt in her eyes and she shuts down, too humiliated to even cry. Because after all this, after all she’s suffered to be with him, _he still doesn’t want her_ —

“It isn’t safe,” he slurs.

Seth reaches for her, Kate thinks, to push her away. Instead, he grabs her waist, and pulls her closer, resting his head against her stomach. “Kate, I’m sorry,” he says, his voice breaking. “I’m so fucking sorry. I fucked up.”

Kate tries to shush him, but there’s no use in trying to console him when there’s no consoling herself. With Seth’s head resting on her thighs, Kate smoothes her hand across his clammy forehead and presses a teary kiss there.

“Why... why’d you come back?” he asks, his eyes red-rimmed and fogged but questioning as he gazes up at her. Seth palms the side of her face, his fingers threading into her hair.

Kate leans into his touch. “I couldn’t leave you,” she confesses, choking back a sob.

And now she never will.

“Y-you’re bleeding,” Seth says, smudging the blood splattered on her face. He pulls back and squints his eyes, examining his red-stained thumb, and then his hands are searching all over her body, looking for the source of the blood. “You’re hurt! Show me—”

“It’s not mine,” she assures him, stilling his probing hands. He’d gotten them all the way under her shirt somehow in his frantic search.

“W-whose?”

“Shh,” she says, cupping his face. “You don’t have to worry about that now. I took care of it.”

“Kate,” he murmurs, his hands still splayed at her waist, stroking at her soft skin. Seth buries his face in her neck, and Kate shivers at the feel of his scratchy beard and soft lips. “You’re my girl. You know that, right?” he says. “I promise I’m gonna make this up to you.”

With that, Seth cups her face, bringing her to his lips. His tongue delves deep into her mouth and Kate groans, arching into him even though anyone with some sense would know better to pull away. But she wants this. Wants _him_.

It’s not an apology she can accept.

“Seth,” Kate manages to say before he takes her mouth again. His hands wander down to her ass, and Seth yanks her into his lap, surprising a yelp out of her. She whimpers as he lays her down on the bed and dots kisses down her belly. Even in his doped up state, his fingers are as quick as ever, and he has her belt and jeans undone in record time. Kate curls her fingers into his thick, dark hair, her nails grazing his scalp. His beard scratches against the soft skin of her tummy, setting her nerve endings ablaze.

She wants more than anything to let this happen. To let him do with her as he wishes and forget for just a while how he’d broken her heart. Last night is still in the forefront of her memory, and she hasn’t yet forgotten just how good he is with his hands. And his mouth, currently pressing sinful kisses across her belly and heading for her hipbones, provides her with a memory of the night before that makes her heart beat between her legs. God, he has a beautiful mouth. And when he’d buried himself between her thighs the night before, he’d proven his silver tongue isn’t just persuasive, but also possesses x-rated capabilities.

But it’ll take more than memories—no matter how wonderful—for her to let go of the heartache from this morning.

Seth hooks his fingers into the band of her jeans and underwear, mere seconds from getting her clothes off. He presses kisses to the tender slice of revealed skin where her jeans and tank top meet, a spot she’d never known could even be so sensitive. And when he begins to tug the material down her legs, Kate grips his arms to stop him. Because if she lets this go any further, there won’t be any resisting him.

“I-I can’t,” she manages to croak out, tongue thick in her mouth. It can’t happen. Not like this, when her wounds are still so fresh and the drugs are still swirling in his eyes.

Looking away from the hurt and confusion on Seth’s face, Kate tries to free herself from his grasp. He holds on tighter with every inch she tries to pull away until he has her pinned to the mattress underneath him.

“Then tell me,” he demands, clinging to her. He buries his face in her stomach, and Kate strokes her hand across his head, her fingers coming to a rest at the back of his neck. Her belly twists in knots at the anguish in his voice, but it’s the sight of his sunken, bloodshot heroin eyes that threatens to undo her. “Tell me what I can do. Tell me how to get you to forgive me.”

It hurts too much to look at him, so she shuts her eyes to block him out. “Let me go,” she whispers.

She’s not even sure if he knows this is _real_ , that this isn’t some fever dream of a trip he’s on, and _happily ever after_ doesn’t come in a needle. Real life is a bit more complicated than that. And what he’s demanding from her may just push her to the limit.

Kate tries to wiggle her way out from underneath him, but he clings tighter. “No,” he says. “Don’t want you to go.”

“Seth, please.”

“You stay,” he says, his voice wavering. Something wet drips onto her face, and Kate risks a glance at him only to find tears budding in his whiskey brown eyes. “ _Stay_.”

It’s not an apology.

But for now it’s all she’s got.

Kate lets out a shaking breath and gives up the fight. She couldn’t leave even if she tried. He’s too strong.

“Okay.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he says, his weight squishing her into the mattress. He relaxes against her, not seeming to mind that she’s still soaking wet.

With some slight shuffling, Kate tugs at her wet jeans. Seth blinks at her in confusion as she kicks them down her legs and off the bed along with her boots. And with only some minor struggling, she manages to free herself from her blue button-up. The chafing may have stopped, but now she’s trapped beneath Seth Gecko in just her underwear and tank top with his toned, half-naked body surrounding her, and it’s difficult to say if that makes this situation better or worse.

It’s worse. Definitely worse.

Before Seth has time to detect their mutual half-nakedness and get any funny ideas, Kate curls her fingers around his neck and guides his cheek to rest against her chest. Seth shuts his eyes and gives a sigh. She feels his puckered lips pressing a kiss to the top of her breast where her tank top exposes her cleavage. Because _of course_ he can sense a boob even while drugged and half out of his mind.

Kate bites her lip, conflicted with whether to laugh or cry. Instead of doing either, she focuses on her fingers caressing his back, drawing her fingertips across the wings of his shoulder blades and down the length of his spine. His breaths begin to even out and she thinks maybe he’s fallen asleep.

None of this was anything she could have expected. Not Gabriel’s attack. Not Seth holding her hostage with his ridiculously huge muscles. And above all else, that he wouldn’t let her go.

But maybe this is what it means to be Seth Gecko’s girl...

“Wasn’t a mistake,” he murmurs, and Kate’s breath hitches, her stroking fingers freezing in place.

She knows it would be stupid to believe the words of a heroin addict on a high when nothing that comes out of his mouth can even be trusted.

She’s made that mistake before.

Tomorrow. When he’s sober again—when he’s _Seth_ again—she’ll know the answer once and for all.

She just hopes when that time comes she’ll have the strength to leave him if it’s not the one she wants to hear.


	6. Holy Ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He thought he could find love in a needle. In a lie.  
> Seth blinks up at the face of an angel and realizes he’d had it all along.

The needle bites into his skin, and the anticipation of the rush is almost better than the rush itself.

Still, it’s nothing compared to the pure _pleasure_ that hits his brain with the force of an explosion. It’s every one of the best orgasms of his life all combined into one, and he’d be coming in his pants if only he could get hard. He’s warm from the inside out, and so Zen he could be mistaken for the Dalai Lama. The explosion sends him careening back into the cradle of his soft mattress, and he’s drowning in love.

It’s fucking _glorious_.

Within seconds, he’s sinking into a dream. Down, down, down he falls, into that cozy embrace where nothing hurts and all his worries are gone.

When he’s here, he doesn’t miss _her_.

She comes to him like an angel, haloed by a brilliant, otherworldly light. It’s as if she’s descended from Heaven; her feet don’t even seem to touch the ground. Her soft, melodic voice calls out to him, and he feels the utterance of his name like a lover’s kiss.

She’s every beautiful thing in the world. The most precious treasure he could ever possess, and worth more than the millions he’s spent a lifetime of conning and thieving hoping to attain. Seth squints up at her, blinded by her blessed light.

Too fast for his eyes to register, she crosses the distance from the door to his bed, appearing right before him. Seth startles, and the gold cross at her throat glitters with amusement.

“Kate,” he murmurs, reaching with hesitant fingers to touch her. “What are you doing here?”

She was supposed to be _gone_. After everything he’d done to get her away from him, after pushing her past her breaking point and _hurting_ her... It’d been for her own good, he comforted himself. Everything he’d done was to ensure she’d never come back.

So why was she here now?

The cross shimmers before his eyes, and between one blink and the next, the light surrounding Kate is gone, and he’s blinded by the sudden darkness. He can still feel her there, though, can hear her breathing, but it’s quickened in pace like his own pulse.

“Seth,” she says, her voice not like her own.

That’s when he notices the _eyes_. Seth gasps at the sight of them, glowing and yellow and glinting at him in the dark.

Only, those aren’t her eyes. _Nothing_ could be right about eyes like that.

She blinks, and Seth’s heart stutters.

_It can’t be_.

“Look at what you did to me, Seth,” she whispers, her voice soft as a dream with the edge of a nightmare. “None of this would have happened to me if it weren’t for you.”

“No! I-I let you go! You were supposed to be _safe_!”

“You promised to protect me. I needed you and you weren’t there.”

“Kate!” he cries. “I tried to keep you safe. I thought—”

He thought she’d be better off. She was strong. She’d make it on her own. He believed that. And she’d be safe anywhere he _wasn’t_. He’d done nothing but bring hell into her life every moment he’s been in it. People have a tendency to die around him, and he couldn’t risk her being one of the casualties.

The mattress dips with her weight, and he forgets to breathe. Those terrible, glowing eyes inch closer, and he can’t fucking _move_. Limbs heavy and useless, all he can do is cringe away in fear as Kate’s silhouette comes nearer until he can make out her pale face in the little light that creeps through the curtains. Still, he can’t seem to tear his eyes off of her.

Even undead, Kate is no less devastating in her beauty.

Her soft palm caresses his forehead, and he flinches at the coldness of her skin. “I’m not the girl I once was. You’ve taken everything from me, Seth.” Kate places her hand at his throat. “Now there’s nothing left.”

“Kate...” he sobs. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“Sorry’s not good enough,” she says. Cold, dead hands erupt out of the mattress and slide over his arms and legs, pinning him down like one of the insects in Richie’s bug collection. Seth struggles in their clutches, but it’s no use.

Helpless, Seth can only watch as Kate rears her head back, opening her mouth wide as fangs emerge from her gums and her face transforms into that of a monster’s. Purple luminescent scales appear on her face, the ridge of her brow thickening. With a snarl, she clutches his face, sharp nails digging into his skin hard enough to draw blood.

She licks at his face where blood trickles down his chin. Her eyes flutter closed at the taste of him and she gives an obscene groan. He thinks he might be sick.

“This is going to hurt,” she promises.

Seth squeezes his eyes shut. If he’s going to die, somehow it only seems right for her to be the one to finish the job.

Kate sinks her teeth into his neck, and Seth shouts. His mouth fills with blood, and he chokes on the metallic taste. She pulls back, and he makes the mistake of opening his eyes only to find Kate with his blood staining her lips and dripping off her chin. She gives a primal scream as she tears into him again—

The world turns back on and there’s a pounding in his head that feels like the strike of a gavel repeatedly declaring his death sentence.

_Kate’s gone_.

Seth tries to glance around, but she’s nowhere to be found. She’ll be back, he knows, and she’ll finish the job for sure. His neck throbs where she’d bit him. He tries to move, but his legs are caught. Feeling like dumbbells have been chained to his arms and legs, Seth fights to free himself, but only succeeds in rolling over.

With sluggish, shaking hands Seth clutches his throat in an effort to staunch the blood flow at his neck.

Except... there isn’t any. There’s nothing there but the scar Richie left.

The pounding abruptly stops and there’s a moment of silence until all he hears is _her_.

_Kate_.

“Seth...” She calls out to him as if from a dream, and then she’s _there_ before his eyes, her face dotted with blood.

He knew she’d be back for him. She blamed him for fucking up her entire life, and now she’s dead like Richie. _She’s dead and he couldn’t stop her from dying_ —

That’s when he feels it: the heat of her soft palms on his damp face chasing away the nightmare, and then they’re everywhere, freeing him from the dead hands caging him.

He stares up at her face, awestruck by her beauty. Even the light around her has returned, enveloping her in divine radiance.

For an instant, those unholy eyes flash before his own. He blinks and the eyes are gone as quickly as he’d seen them. The gold cross around Kate’s neck dances in the light.

“Kate,” he murmurs.

She’s _alive_.

And that’s how it’s got to stay.

“It isn’t safe...” he tries to say, but he can only slur the words.

He grabs her shoulders, wanting to hold onto her forever. Kate’s eyes are wide and panicked, and tears track down her cheeks. That frightened look is one he’s gotten to know too well. He knows she’ll be wearing it when all the shit he’s caused finally catches up to her. That he only spells bad news for her if she stays. She shouldn’t be anywhere near him.

The nightmare comes back to him, of her face turned monstrous and blood staining her mouth.

He _can’t_ let that happen.

Seth holds on tighter, hugging her close. Kate wraps him up in her arms, stroking all over his face, and the warmth and security he feels is better than any of the shit he’s ever pumped into himself. It’s like nothing he’s ever felt. Not with any of the women he’s ever been with. Not even with Vanessa. Never with Vanessa.

He thought he could find love in a needle. In a lie.

Seth blinks up at the face of an angel and realizes he’d had it all along. He’d found his Holy Grail, and he’d let her go.

_Never again_.

And if this isn’t a dream.

If when he opens his eyes in the morning and she’s still there.

If he gets to be that _lucky_.

He’ll finally let her know it.

* * *

He’s pretty sure some douchebag must’ve parked a car on top of him. Probably reversed over him a few times for good measure, judging by how useless his arms and legs are.

He can’t fucking move.

Seth could never mistake the feel of breasts pillowing his head. Not in a million goddamn years. He struggles to open his eyes to find out just who the breast pillows belong to, and figures he may have to take up powerlifting with his eyelids if it takes this much effort.

Finally, he opens his eyes and all he sees is _her_.

_There she is_.

Kate. Looking like a goddamn Disney princess with her soft lashes and rosy cheeks.

He sobers up in an instant, remembering the vision— _nightmare?_ —he’d had. Kate with venomous fangs, snake-slit eyes, and a desire to tear him open and drink him dry.

With trembling hands, Seth brushes the loose strands of her dark hair back from her face. Kate’s doe eyes blink up at him, still heavy with sleep. “You’re really here,” he breathes. Scanning all over her face, he searches for signs that he’s still in a dream. Because there’s no way she could really be here now, could there? Not after what he’d done...

Fear prickles at the back of his mind that her pretty green eyes are just an illusion. That any second they’ll become the nightmare from his dream again.

She _feels_ real enough.

“Seth,” she whispers, and he shuts his eyes, reveling in the sound of her soft voice.

She’s _real_.

Her heart-shaped face is swollen and her eyes are puffy, and he knows she’s been crying.

He knows it’s because of him.

Tears build in her eyes once again, her lip quivering as her small hands cup his face. It’s that touch more than anything that finally brings him out of the nightmare and back into the world. “I’m here,” she says.

“I thought you left?” he asks, thumbing the tears off her cheeks. “You were gone.”

“I came back,” she says with a wobbly smile.

Seth’s throat constricts in a way it hasn’t since the Twister. Since Richie decided to eighty-six on the Gecko Brothers and take up with the snake queen.

But Kate?

She stayed. She fucking _stayed_.

“Goddammit, Kate,” he growls, crashing his mouth against hers. Kate squeaks in her throat, her hands coming up to his bare chest. His hand rakes through her hair, holding her close with no intention of letting her pull away this time. She softens her mouth against his, and he takes that as an invitation for more.

_She stayed_.

How’s he ever going to be able to let her go now?

Seth tongues past her lips, and he eases up to kiss her the way he’d wanted to this morning. Soft. With light touches of his tongue to hers. It’s everything he’s ever wanted to tell her in words and couldn’t force himself to say.

When he pulls back for air, Kate’s eyes are wide and searching.

“Sorry,” he whispers, dropping kisses down her neck, and he doesn’t know if he’s apologizing for this morning or for the attack kiss. When he comes to a particular spot on her neck, Kate lets out a hiss, and he finally notices the bruise he’d left there the night before. “Jesus Christ. I’m sorry I did that,” he says, turning her face to the side to examine the purpled mark.

He’d been rough. Christ, he’d left _bruises_. He’d done more damage to her in one night armed with just a bottle of tequila than any time he’s ever wielded a loaded gun around her.

“Kate,” he says, palming her face. She nuzzles her cheek against his hand.

He wants to say he’s so fucking sorry, though he doesn’t even know where to begin with an apology. The words just don’t come.

But maybe he could _show_ her.

It hits him how kissing her felt last night, when he’d surprised her in the doorway. How _right_ it felt. How right _she_ felt against him. And then tugging her into the room and laying her out on the bed to kiss her deeper... She’d made noises that drove him crazy, and he’d bruised his mouth wanting more. None of it compared to what it felt like being inside her though. None of the women he’s ever been with—and there’d been a lot of them—had ever made him feel the way he does when he’s with _her_.

“Let me make it up to you,” he says, pressing his lips to the heartbeat on her throat.

And how fucked up is that? Their first real time together and it has to be makeup sex. But considering how much he’s fucked up with her already, maybe he should just shut the hell up and be grateful he even gets to have this much. She’s forgiven a lifetime of shit already. “Please, baby,” he says, kissing the other side of her neck.

“What, _now_?” Kate asks, and she can’t disguise the panicked edge to her voice.

Shit. She’s right. This ain’t nearly the kind of heart-stopping Clark Gable moment he’d been so keen on having. Jesus Christ, she deserves a disgusting Hallmark movie of a romance with all the magic and whimsy and shit, complete with corny, eye-roll inducing dialogue. But somehow he’s let his relationship with Kate turn into a goddamn Romero movie.

For her, he has to start doing better. _Right fucking now_.

Seth leans in for another kiss, but Kate turns her face away at the last second. And maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise that she can’t even look him in the face. Maybe that’s for the best. She’s got every reason in the world to be upset with him.

Kate shrugs out from underneath him, and this time he lets her go.

She takes a spot on the bed beside him, hugging her arms to her chest. Seth blinks in surprise at the sight of her without any pants on. He’d been looking at her face this whole time, her pantslessness had completely escaped his notice.

“I thought you didn’t want me,” she whispers. Hearing her strangled voice makes Seth tear his eyes away from the polka dots on her panties to the devastation on her face.

A sucker punch to the nads would hurt less than this.

“Kate, baby. Hey, look at me,” he says, turning her face so that he can see her eyes. Tears leak out of the corners of her eyes and the guilt washes over him all over again. “Let’s get one thing straight, okay? _I goddamn want you_.”

“But earlier you said—”

“Forget whatever I said before, okay? Listen, I only said that shit because I thought—I thought...” Seth looks away and curses.

Fuck, why is this so hard?

He’d thought he was doing the right thing. He thought if she was out of sight, she’d be out of his mind too, but that had been far from the truth. She’d been waiting for him the moment he closed his eyes. But it hadn’t been _Kate_ , and for a split second he’d seen what could happen to her without him. He looks at her now and sees those glowing eyes superimposed onto Kate’s face. What if he let her go and some asshole bloodsucker came after her?

He’d never forgive himself.

Fuck, it was bad for her all around. But if she stayed, at least he’d still have her. At least she’d still have a chance. Because if something happened to her and he wasn’t there...

He might as well have pulled the trigger on her himself.

That leaves only one option.

“Kate, I’m no good for you. You know it, and I know it—”

“You don’t get to decide for me.”

“Will you let me finish?” he asks. Kate blinks in surprise and snaps her mouth shut, giving a nod. Clearing his throat, Seth continues. “I thought if I pushed you hard enough, you’d forget all about me. Fuck knows, you deserve better than anything I could give you.”

Seth stares down into his lap until he feels her fingers inching into his palm. She takes his hand, and he weaves their fingers together, stroking her soft skin with his thumb. He glances up at her suddenly, pinning her with his gaze. “You’re not just some one night stand to me. You gotta know that.” Kate’s breath hitches, but he keeps going. “And if you still want me, I’m yours. Christ, you already _have_ me. You’ve gotta _know_.”

She’d had him from the start.

Kate shuts her eyes and a tear cuts a path down her cheek. “This is the last time,” she tells him, her voice quiet but firm.

Seth skips a breath. She couldn’t mean...?

Kate meets his eyes. “You hurt me, Seth. What you did... I can’t do that again. This is it. There won’t be anymore second chances.” She swallows thickly, blinking the tears out of her eyes. “I’m not just some helpless little _kitten_ who followed you home, y’know? That day I _wanted_ to be with you. I _chose_ you. _I still do_.”

Seth gives a weak laugh. “You’ve cat to be kitten me,” he jokes with a crooked smile.

He knows his lame attempt at lightening the mood has failed when she doesn’t smile back.

Okay, so maybe now isn’t the time.

Kate gives the most infinitesimal shake of her head, releasing a disappointed sigh. “I’m being serious. We’re supposed to be in this _together_. _Partners_. But if I’m not your partner, what am I to you?”

“Hey, hey,” he says, scooting closer to thumb the tears off her cheeks. Kate shuts her eyes and swallows back her tears as he cups her neck and touches his forehead to hers. “You’re my girl,” he breathes against her lips. “You _know_ that.”

“I can’t be both?”

Her eyes meet his and, dammit, he’s never seen her so hopeful.

Partners. Real partners.

Can he even bring himself to be that again? He and Richie had been partners, and look at how that turned out.

But no matter how much it scares him, no matter the many awful ways he could lose her. He’d be a bastard to deny her this any longer.

“Okay,” he concedes. “If that’s what you want... okay.”

“Okay,” she sniffs.

Seth tugs her back into his arms, pressing a kiss to her temple. Kate fits her arms around his back, letting out a shaking breath.

If they go down, they’ll go down together.

Partners to the end.

“Listen,” he says. “I know I haven’t exactly made this easy on you. In fact, I’ve been a Class A prick about this whole thing. But I almost lost you once. I ain’t gonna let that happen again. So...”

Fuck, she’d been the only one to stick by his side when even his own brother had turned his back on him. She’d seen the worst parts of him and hadn’t run away scared.

That had to mean something, right?

Seth tips up her chin to get a look at her pretty green eyes. “If we’re doing this, it’s the real deal. You think you’re up for that?” he asks.

Kate stares at him for so long that he starts to feel uncomfortable with her silence.

No response. Nothing. Nada.

He starts to wonder whether he’s judged this interaction completely the wrong way, if he’s somehow managed to screw up with her again two seconds after apologizing.

And then she kisses him.

Kate’s mouth crushes against his, and fuck, does it feel so _right_. She tastes so good. No longer like the Cuervo they’d gotten stupid on the night before. This is undiluted Kate Fuller in all her purity.

Seth’s hands catch her face, cupping her around the back of her neck to draw her mouth closer. She makes a small sound at the back of her throat that starts a fire under his skin. He maneuvers her back onto the mattress, never breaking the kiss as he lowers his weight on top of her, parting her legs to make room for his body.

Frantically gripping the hem of her tank top, Seth lifts it over her head and tosses the material over his shoulder, and then she’s back to attacking his lips with open-mouthed kisses.

If Kate Fuller wants to eat him alive, he’ll be all too happy to offer himself up on a silver fucking platter.

Seth pushes the cups of her bra out of the way, kissing down her neck to the valley between her breasts. And would you look at that. The color of her nipples matches the pink of her mouth. Kate unhooks her bra and Seth happily tugs the straps down her arms. He latches onto one of those rosy nipples, suckling at her gently, mindful to caress her other breast with his free hand. Kate arches her back, releasing a cry.

“Christ,” he groans, hardening in his shorts at the sound she makes.

He makes his way down her torso, trailing kisses all the way, until he reaches her hips. How convenient that she’s already pants-less. He spots the wet stain on her panties and feels his cock throb at just the sight of her already soaking the material.

His hands shake as he strokes over her soft skin, determined to be so careful with her this time. He’s been with a lot of women, some of whose names he doesn’t even remember, but this is _Kate_. He’d taken her that first night in a drunken stupor. Even worse, he hadn’t appreciated the gift it’d been.

Now he has to do it _right_.

Seth tugs at the band of her underwear, and Kate raises her hips to help as he drags them off. She bites her lip, gazing back at him with heat in her green eyes. And god, he’s never seen a look like that on her before. It burns him from the inside out.

Still, she can’t disguise the apprehension he sees there. Seth, intent on watching her reaction, moves between her thighs. The hitched breath she gives as he moistens his lips with his tongue doesn’t escape his notice one bit.

“S’it alright if I fuck you with my mouth?” he asks.

Kate gasps. She’s not a virgin. He’d made sure of that last night. But by no means does that make her _experienced_.

Was it too much?

But to his surprise she nods. “Y-yes.”

With a happy sigh, Seth peers down at her pink folds. How the _fuck_ had he done this last night and not committed every detail to memory? With his thumbs, he parts the lips of her pussy, and she trembles. “Jesus Christ. You’re so fucking beautiful, y’know that? What a perfect fucking pussy.” She’s so slick from arousal that she _glistens_ and he’s barely gotten started with her. Kate’s already whimpering as he presses kisses to her inner thighs, his coarse beard teasing her soft skin. She rises up onto her elbows to watch, panting audibly.

Seth locks eyes with her as he finally touches his tongue to her clit, and Kate gasps, her legs squeezing his head like a vise. He wraps his hands around her thighs to pry her legs open, holding her steady.

So sweet. Like a goddamn peach. And she’s so damn _responsive_ it makes him so hard he’s tempted to fuck himself into the mattress.

“S-Seth...” she moans, sinking back against the pillows, and _fuck_ does he love the sound of his name coming off her lips. Kate’s hand rakes through his hair and gives a light tug, her hips writhing against his mouth with each flick of his tongue to her swollen clit. And when he seals his lips around her and _sucks_ , he’s delighted by her pleasured cry as she fists the bed sheets in a white-knuckled grip.

Kate trembles and gulps his name. She arches her back, her nipples stiffening into crowns on top of her breasts. She grabs at her tits, but Seth greedily pushes her hands out of the way to thumb her pebbled nipples himself, and her hands slide back into his hair in search of something to hold onto.

He explores her slit and fucks into her with his tongue, the taste of her filling his mouth. Kate whimpers, grinding against his face, trying to coax his mouth back onto her clit. He sucks at her until Kate’s bucking her hips and she wrenches off the bed, her moans escalating into a scream.

Finally, she collapses in exhaustion. Seth gives her pussy one last lick in parting before wiping his mouth and beard with the blanket and making the climb back up her spent body.

“Oh my,” Kate sighs, still catching her breath.

“Hey, I said I’d make it up to you. Didn’t I, _Kitten_?” he teases, raising his eyebrows at her suggestively.

Kate blushes bright enough to match her reddened pussy and hides her face in her hands. “ _Oh, my god!_ ” she groans. “You’re going to make that a _thing_ now, aren’t you?”

Seth laughs in response as he lowers his body against hers and adjusts her still trembling legs at his hips.

Kate peers at him through the cracks of her fingers until he feels compelled to tug her hands away from her face and guide them around his neck. “A little late for being shy, don’t you think?” he says, pressing kisses to the tops of her breasts.

She gives a nervous giggle, but draws his face back up to her own for him to lavish her with more kisses to her abused mouth.

He’s got a new fix, and he thinks this one may be worse than the last.

Kate rocks her pelvis against him, and he releases a groan as she grinds against the rock hard erection straining in his shorts.

“Seth,” she says, and the whine in her voice has him stifling a curse. “Want you,” she mumbles, voice muffled by his kisses.

She surprises the hell out of him when she reaches into his shorts and closes her small hand around his cock. Seth releases a groan as her fingers stroke down his length and make him choke her name. He shuts his eyes tight and grits his teeth when she fingers the sweet spot at the tip of his cock.

He sees the fascination in her eyes as she teases him, watching his face for his reaction. God, she’s driving him _crazy_ , and he can’t help feeling he’s going to regret ever giving her this much power over him when she kills him with just a glance of those bedroom eyes.

“Baby, baby,” he grits out, moving her hands off of him. Another time, he promises himself.

Kate regretfully lets go, but her hands are still there tugging at his shorts.

“You’re sure?” he asks.

Kate gives a breathy laugh, giving his erection a playful squeeze that has him almost shouting.

“Ah, fuck,” he grunts.

“A little late for being _shy_ , don’t you think?” she teases with a sarcastic raise of her eyebrows.

She’s cackling on the inside, he knows.

“Yeah,” he laughs, touching his forehead to hers and nodding. Seth cradles her head in his arms and kisses her deep before pulling away to shed his shorts. Then he’s right back where he wants to be.

_Inside Kate_.

Her body welcomes his intrusion, blossoming beautifully as he eases inside. And, Christ, he thinks he’s finally found what he’s been looking for all this time.

Because this sure as _fuck_ feels like paradise to him.

Kate squeezes her eyes shut, letting out a whimper and clutching his back, her nails biting into his skin. He wants to fuck into her so badly, but for her sake he plans to take it slow. He watches as his cock disappears inside her, fascinated that her body can take him. Seth rolls his hips gently forward, and she moans. When he’s all the way inside, he spares her a glance, sweeping the hair back off her face. “You good?”

“Y-yeah,” she says. Kate’s hands wind their way around his back and wander down his sides until she reaches his ass cheeks and gives each one a squeeze. Seth grunts a curse against her lips as he begins to move, and Kate cries out as he shoves deeper.

“God, baby. You feel so good,” he sighs. “Do you feel good?”

Kate gives an incomprehensible moan at the drag of his cock within her, and her pussy twitches in response around him.

Well, he’ll take that as a _yes_.

He lowers his mouth to hers, tonguing into her in a rhythm that matches his languorous thrusts below. Kate tightens her legs around his hips, raising her pelvis to meet every push forward. Seth snakes a hand between her legs to tease her neglected clit as he fucks into her slow and steady. Curses fall off her lips along with his name until he captures her lips once more in a ravenous kiss that has him groaning into her mouth. Her hot, wet walls tremble around him every time he pumps into her. She feels so good, he could die happy between Kate Fuller’s thighs.

“More,” she moans. “Oh, god, Seth. Please.”

Kate’s hands grip his ass, encouraging him to fuck deeper, and Seth lets out a growl. In compliance with her demands, he shifts back onto his knees, hauling her body upright along with him so that she’s straddling his lap. She clings to him as he quickens his pace. Kate’s head tips back, and her mouth drops open as he fucks furiously into her from below.

“Oh, god. Oh, god,” she whimpers.

“That’s it, baby,” he rasps.

Kate moves against him, crying and moaning and bucking her hips until her pussy clenches suddenly around him. She sinks her teeth into his neck, her body rippling around him as a second orgasm overtakes her. Seth curses at the sudden flare of pain in his neck, gritting his teeth as he fucks her through it. He lays her boneless body flat against the bed and buries his face in her neck, slamming into her as he nears his own release. It takes everything to pull out before he comes, and he groans as he shoots ribbons of come across her thighs and abdomen.

“Oh, my god,” Kate gasps breathlessly.

“Jesus Christ, Kitten,” he pants, trying to blink the spots out of his eyes. He collapses into the pillows beside her, staring at her parted mouth as she catches her breath.

Tipping her face up at him, he kisses her, delving deep into her mouth with his tongue. And with a final peck on her lips, Seth rises from the bed. Panic flares in Kate’s eyes and he instantly feels guilt wash over him.

Like hell he’s gonna let him leaving become a trigger for her.

Seth gestures for her to lie back down. “Wait here,” he says, and she relaxes back against the pillows, reassured that he’s not going to ditch her. Seth retreats into the bathroom, reaching for a towel and running it under the faucet. When he returns he finds her exactly how he’d left her on the bed. “Jesus, look at you,” he says, admiring the view of her from afar, wearing nothing but that cross around her neck. Her wild hair blankets the pillows, her kiss-swollen mouth Snow White red. Breasts enlarged and her nipples pinched into tight buds. Her legs splayed open and belly decorated with his come. And to top it off, the engorged pearl adorning the top of her still throbbing pussy.

She’s a fucking mess.

She’s _beautiful_.

His cock stirs again at the sight of her.

_Later_.

Kate flinches as he runs the cool towel between her legs and over her stomach to clean her off. Seth quickly wipes himself down before chucking the towel back into the open door of the bathroom. He climbs back into bed with her, and she coaxes him against her, resting his head against her breast as she strokes her fingers through his sweat-dampened hair.

After a long silence, he finally asks, “Why _did_ you come back?” Kate’s fingers still in his hair. “Not that I’m complaining of course,” he adds.

Her tongue swipes out to wet her lips, and he watches as she tugs her bottom lip between her teeth. “Gabriel...” she starts, and Seth furrows his brows at her.

Who the fuck is _Gabriel_?

“The night manager,” she clarifies, and Seth lets out a snarl just thinking about that chubby, four-eyed fucker and his obsession with Kate. If he did anything to her...

Seth tightens his arms around her, not even wanting to consider the notion.

“He had your phone,” Kate continues. “He texted me and I thought it was you. He was a bloodsucker, Seth.”

“I’m gonna kill him!” he says, sitting up in bed. And then with a glance at Kate, he asks, “You want me to kill him?”

Eyes downcast, she says, “I... already did.”

Seth stares at her in amazement. “Jesus Christ, Kate. So that’s why you were all bloody. I thought I dreamed that.” His eyes scan over her face, and sure enough, the evidence is still there, the blood having been mostly washed away from her sweat and tears. Seth tracks her body with his eyes, performing a quick check of her person for fang piercings in case there’s something he missed. “He didn’t... do anything to you... did he?” He tips her chin this way and that to examine her neck.

“He was waiting for me. He wanted to turn me.”

“But you’re _okay_ , right? He fucking didn’t bite you, did he?”

“No.”

Seth sighs in relief. “Okay then. You’re okay. Everything's okay.”

“No, it's  _not_ ,” she says, and Seth snaps his eyes back to hers. “I thought he _killed_ you. I think he wanted to. I think... I saved your life.”

Seth pulls her in close, pressing a kiss to her temple. “And you killed him. It’s over now, baby.”

“That’s not all.” Kate turns to face him. “Look, I’m only saying this because I love you, Seth. But I _need_ you to get your shit together.”

“What are you talking about?” he asks, blinking in surprise by the sudden hard tone of her voice.

Kate gestures over to his drug kit open on the table. “You really scared me today,” she says, toying with the ends of his beard. “I thought you were dead, but you were _high_. I can’t even imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t come home in time to stop Gabriel from hurting you. He would have _killed_ you, and you wouldn’t have been able to stop him.”

“Yeah,” he concedes. “You’re right.”

“This isn’t going to work if you’re strung out all the time. And I want this— _us_ —to work.” Then her hands are cupping his face, bringing his eyes back to hers. “You said that I _had_ you. But I won’t if you’re _dead_.”

“Yeah, baby,” he says with a nod. “I’ll get clean. I’ll...I’ll take care of you.”

And for the first time, he believes there might actually be a future for them.

She watches his face intently, probably looking for a sign not to trust his word, and he can’t blame her for having doubts.

Finally, she says, “Okay.”

“I swear I’m not going to let you down, Kit,” he promises.

“You better not,” she says, snuggling back into his arms. But Seth still hears the threat in her voice, and it’s almost enough to have him running scared. “I don’t want to lose you,” she whispers.

“Hey,” he says, tipping her head back to see her eyes. “You won’t. I’m not going anywhere.”

Kate presses a kiss to his mouth and nestles back against his chest, sighing as he runs his hands over her naked arms and back.

If nothing else, he can stop using. For her.

Kate falls asleep in his arms, and he thinks maybe for once he’s doing something right for a change.


End file.
